This invention is in the field of mechanized or continuous mining or tunneling although other technologies such as directional drilling, gas removal and pipe jacking are relied upon. The invention relates more specifically to the field of continuous mechanized mining or tunneling wherein a rotating cutter is remotely controlled and moves in substantially a straight line with all extracted material being continuously moved. However, there are several important differences between the present invention and known mining or tunneling methods. For instance, tunneling proceeds from one predetermined point to another; however, the present method of mining can follow a mineral seam utilizing a guide member and at the same time supporting the entire bore with removable supports. It is, of course, the material being removed in a non-cyclical manner that is of primary concern and not the resulting bore.
Prior art patents issued to the inventor include U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,355,215; 3,399,738; 3,232,361; 3,678,694; 3,776,594; 3,778,107 and 3,411,826. While these inventions describe novel means of tunneling through the earth, neither these nor other methods known to the inventor provide a method for removing a desired material from a horizontal or pitching seam of great length without the necessity of having miners at the face being mined. The well-known horizontal augering method is practical for only a few hundred feet, after which the auger becomes overstressed due to the friction between the auger flights and the bore as well as between the loose material and the bore. This friction limits the diameter as well as the length of bore in which the auger may be utilized.
Also, augering can only be accomplished in a straight line while the method of the present invention utilizes directional control. One of the more difficult seams to be mined is a seam which pitches at an angle from the horizontal. Such seams often decline from the horizontal at 15 to 20 degrees or more. Conventional mining of such seams is expensive and for the most part uneconomical. The present invention provides a method which can be carried out from an outcrop or a beginning face wherein the bore follows the seam and no miners are needed at the face, and yet the material being mined is removed up the slope and the bore is supported until mining has been completed.
Furthermore, the present method is less damaging to the ecology and the environment that known mining methods and is capable of removing 80% of a given mineral deposit.